Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure today that I rise to speak on Bill C-20, an act to amend the Competition Act.
As has been mentioned by other members, Bill C-20 has returned from the Senate with sections 66.1 and 66.2 deleted. These sections pertain to whistleblowing and the government has proposed new amendments to reinstate these provisions. The only significant concession that the government has made, however, is withdrawing any reference to criminal sanctions.
Before I give my comments on the amendments to the question I would like to reiterate on behalf of the Progressive Conservative Party our overall support for this bill. Our party has always understood that the promotion of competitive markets is of fundamental importance in today's global and extraordinarily competitive economy.
Competition stimulates innovation and growth in jobs, provides businesses and consumers with competitive prices and product choices that they need and increases overall the average standard of living in society.
Without a modern competition law Canadian businesses will encounter anti-competitive barriers to their entry and expansion in their markets. They may find in time it is difficult to source and input at competitive prices and ultimately they may encounter other refrains in their ability to remain competitive.
In my view the Senate has made the correct choice to remove the whistleblowing provisions which were not part of the original legislation but were added by the House industry committee. That is not to say the intent of legislating whistleblowing provisions is wrong. But as pointed out by organizations, including the Canadian Bar Association, sections 66.1 and 66.2 were an undue intrusion into the role of the employer with respect to otherwise completely lawful behaviours.
The whistleblowing provisions were introduced by the industry committee during its hearings. Consequently they were not part of the same public consultation process as the other provisions of the bill. The Canadian Bar Association went further and said that section 66.1 would require the commissioner of competition to keep confidential the identities of persons who notify the commission when they have reasonable grounds to believe that another person has committed or intends to commit an offence. Section 66.2 would prevent employers who dismiss, suspend, demote, discipline, harass or otherwise disadvantage an employee or deny an employee a benefit of employment for whistleblowing activities, and effectively employers are also prohibited from the above employment actions if they believe an employee will undertake the above whistleblowing actions. I will read one paragraph from the letter by the Canadian Bar Association that was sent to the chairman of the Senate committee on banking, trade and commerce. Page 4, paragraph 6 reads as follows:
Employers should not be required to continue to deal with employees or contractors in whom they have lost confidence. An employee's complaint to the commissioner would generally sour the work environment. An employer acting in good faith should be entitled to terminate an employee either with notice or damages in lieu of notice. This legitimate action by an employer would not longer be available—.
Further, the Canadian Bar Association added:
Proposed whistleblowing provisions conflict with the 1997 report by the honourable Charles Dubin, whom the Competition Bureau had retained to study the issue. The Dubin report concluded that there was no need to amend the Competition Act to protect employee whistleblowers because protection is available through existing processes. The Dubin report also found that the whistleblower legislation in other jurisdictions has had little or no impact.
There are significant problems in both the concepts and the drafting of section 66.2. These problems will create unnecessary and difficult situations for employers. In addition, there are issues respecting section 66.1 that should be of concern to the commissioner and to the Competition Bureau.
This past year the direction of the Competition Bureau, Mr. Konrad Von Finckenstein, was asked at both House and Senate committees to give the bureau's position on the whistleblowing provisions. His response was: “The amendments were put forward not by me and not on our suggestion but by a member of the House. I am neutral on it. I see the deterrent value. On the other hand, I do not want to create something that is going to cause employers a lot of harm or interference with normal employee relations or is going to cause a lot of useless work”.
This is hardly a ringing endorsement. Section 66.1 and section 66.2 even as modified by the government do not represent government policy but rather the initiative of one member of the House without in our opinion proper consultation or study.
As stated earlier, Justice Dubin when asked to express his view on the desirability of such legislation produced a report which concluded that the whistleblowing provisions are not necessary because an employee would have rights currently under common law and employment status. This was recently confirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada in Wallace v. United Grain Growing Limited.
Let me be clear. Our party does agree with the intent of whistleblowing provisions and to a certain extent in the potential of whistleblowing provisions. This debate should be subject to proper consultation and scrutiny and not hastily rushed into. Elected officials sometimes are prone to look for quick legislative solutions to otherwise complex public policy issues. We would like to see more consultation and more discussion and more rigorous diligence. In researching this there are organizations, including the Canadian Bar Association and the head of the Competition Bureau, that have expressed significant reservations about the effectiveness of whistleblowing provisions.
The Progressive Conservative Party will therefore oppose the government's amendments to Bill C-20 and support the bill as amended by the Senate.
For those members who criticize the Senate when individuals or senators collectively take active roles in amending legislation, and at the same time or perhaps days before or days after will criticize senators for doing nothing, they should be consistent. We want a Senate that is active and participates in these types of very important public policy debates. I believe we do. Even those members of this House who are opposed to the Senate need to recognize that we have a Senate at this time and that the Senate contains members who have significant experiences and a depth of experience and knowledge of public policy quite exceptional in many areas, particularly areas such as the Senate banking committee, which I have had the pleasure of working with as a member of the House of Commons finance committee.
While we have the institution of the Senate, I urge all members of the House to respect that institution and to encourage that institution and its members to diligently pursue important issues of public policy such that we can ensure collectively the House and the other place will produce the types of legislation Canadians need. It is extraordinarily important.
If Senate reform is something individual members of the House feel is needed, that is an issue which should be pursued with legitimate healthy debate. As long as we have a Senate and as long as we have members in that Senate who are capable, intelligent and diligent public servants that work hard on behalf of Canadians, not just offering what Canadians want today but what Canadians need in terms of public policy in the future, we should be encouraging intervention and input from the Senate, not discouraging it.